


Will_Graham_20121008.mp3

by meres_argias



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: M/M, Memory Palace, Old Timey Musical Instruments, Post-Episode: s03e13 The Wrath of the Lamb, Sexual Fantasy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-02
Updated: 2017-01-02
Packaged: 2018-09-14 05:21:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,801
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9163957
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/meres_argias/pseuds/meres_argias
Summary: Will explores their joined memory palace while Hannibal is out cold, and discovers someinterestingrecordings.





	1. Chapter 1

Hannibal was lying on the bed under makeshift blankets, feverish, mildly sedated and, for most intents and purposes, really quite useless. Will had rarely seen him like this, not only incapacitated but also without his usual sharp demeanor, not the usual vicious creature that was ready to strike even when at a disadvantage.

For a change, it was Hannibal's skin and skull that were burning. Will sat down on the bed. His hand on Hannibal's temples came back scalding, and Hannibal, not entirely unconscious, chased the fleeting, cooling touch by turning his head on the pillow, letting a small sound escape.

Will, the merciful, made room for himself to lie down beside him. Well. Not quite merciful. Will ached for this simple closeness as much as Hannibal did. Burrowed under the blankets, their foreheads brushed together gently. Through this single point of touch, the laws of thermodynamics abruptly ceased to apply. Heat and frost enveloped them both at the same time and transferred them to a place imagined, shared, beyond aesthetics and singularly theirs to explore.

Hannibal was absent from their joined memory palace in his usual corporeal form, but his presence was still dominating the decor. Will could see it in the shiny, almost reflective marble floors, heavy chandeliers and Renaissance paintings hanging heavy on the patterned walls of the entrance hall.

Wide corridors with doors lined at both sides were stretching infinitely to contain their experiences. There were things, entire lifetimes really, that they had experienced alone, but it hardly seemed to matter then. Some doors were wide open, leading to the outside, some ajar, some firmly shut. Will walked past the main hall to one of the corridors, smiling to himself.

It wasn't much yet, but this particular wing did bear the marks of his very own 'redecoration' efforts. Will ran his fingers along the drapery, his smile widening. Perhaps the flannel patterned curtains hadn't been strictly necessary, he mused, but they had been quite easy to conjure for one, and more importantly; the mental image of Hannibal microcringing had been worth this small aesthetic incongruity in their metaphysical home.

Hannibal himself had always enjoyed storing memories and associations inside beautiful things. The more intricate the object, the better suited to represent the plurality of his experience. Will had also been attracted to complex objects and mechanisms since he was very young, but not necessarily beautiful ones. Aesthetics didn't matter to him, at least not at first, because a poor boy from Louisiana looking for a distraction from his own brain simply could not afford to care about beauty simultaneously. Boat motors, with their heavy cylinders, spinning gears and sparking plugs, were complicated enough to consume all his brain power when he immersed himself in them. When fixing machines, Will enjoyed a kind of fusion with them, an escape to a focused mental state where no stray thoughts or emotions could reach him.

Well. Before he'd willingly walked inside the minds of the criminally insane and started poking around _their_ machinery, that is. Before Hannibal, Hobbs and Jack Crawford, Will had actually been able to manage his empathy condition with a few tricks. Doing mechanical work was one. Another was to immerse himself by looking, really looking and soaking in the details of complex structures or locations, and singularly occupy his mind by cataloging every object he saw.

Just behind the plaid patterned curtains, which Will lifted aside, one such place could be seen. It had been a falling apart house in one of New Orleans poorer districts, close to the garage where Will's father had worked for a few months when Will was eight years old. His past self had spent an entire afternoon exploring the house, taking in the once beautiful rococo balcony, the fractal burn patterns on the exterior walls, the upturned patio chairs strewn around the yard, the assorted debris littering the floors, and finally, the entrance door that had been burned down to black, the dark maw to the house's white skull. Past Will had found this image soothing.

In the present, Will drew the curtains back up and hid the house that refused to die from view. Now it would live on forever, not only in his mind, but also in Hannibal's.

Speaking of the devil, it seemed that, with Hannibal out cold, Will was free to roam the memory palace alone. He wouldn't venture to any of the places Hannibal was afraid of, that would be ill-advised, but there were other things he could explore. Making his way down the corridor and turning arbitrarily left and right when he could, Will passed by a door that somehow held his attention.

The heavy wooden door was sculpted with an intricate web of orange tree branches. Fruits and blossoms hung from them, and small songbirds could be seen hiding among the leaves. As heavy as it looked, the door yielded easily when Will pushed it open to give way to a large, modestly lit room. There wasn't a lot of furniture in it. A couple of brown couches with green throw pillows, a bookcase with a glass door and a few vases with dried flowers and feathers in them, a glass coffee table in the middle.

Will was ready to turn back and close the door when he spotted the old brass gramophone in the corner; ornate horn peeking at him directly, as if it was permanently possessed with a sense of curiosity.

It was a hybrid thing, half brass horn, half bell-flower. There was already a record lying on top of it. Will approached the old-fashioned machine with a mirrored curiosity, wound it up and watched it spring to life. He adjusted the needle's position on the record and waited on the couch for the machine to make a sound.

An exhale.

A shuffling of papers.

_I don't find you that interesting_


	2. Chapter 2

As their conversation over their very first meal together unfolded in his ears, Will wondered if Hannibal would sometimes sit in this room of his mind while he was in prison, in one of his three piece suits, legs crossed one over the other, listening to their interactions as one would listen to the opera. Or perhaps he had his tie loosened and his shoes off, a drink in hand, and he'd take a sip as he wallowed in feelings he couldn't name or shake as the memories came and went. Will hoped for the latter. He knew he'd hit the bottle often enough during their years apart, withdrawing inside his own mind and finding no solace.

Perhaps it wasn't such a good idea to go through Hannibal's memories while the man was absent. Will got up from the couch and lifted the record off the gramophone. That's when he noticed the empty record sleeve that no doubt belonged together with it.

_September 2012_

Hannibal's calligraphic handwriting. If this record was dated, perhaps there were others. Will turned to the small glass bookcase, and sure enough, discovered a series of vinyl records sorted by date resting neatly on the top shelf.

 _September 2012_ , _October 2012_ all the way through _March 2013_... then nothing for several months.

And then, instead of picking up where they'd met again in Florence, a record titled 'Swan Lake' with golden lettering. Perhaps Dr. Lecter was getting soft in his old age and forgetting to tidy up the memory palace properly. Will was sure there were other rooms storing the countless symphonies that Hannibal knew by heart, and this particular record had turned up here by mistake.

Will looked at the brass horn of the gramophone. The brass horn looked back. There was something incongruous about finding Tchaikovsky amidst all the other records. Curiosity won. Will brushed off the other voice in his head, telling him to leave Hannibal's stuff well alone, and swapped the records on the gramophone.

As soon as the first sounds from the 'Swan Lake' record started playing, Will knew he had stumbled upon something he really shouldn't have.

_Ah_

He froze.

_Hannibal_

Ok, definitely not Tchaikovsky.

_Hannibal, please._

It was his own voice again. But this... this didn't sound like a memory.

Will swallowed.

_Hold me, please._

Definitely not a memory.

_Hold me down._

Cold sweat ran down Will's back.

_I want to feel it as you, ah_

Will nearly unhinged the needle off the gramophone in his haste in shoving it aside. What had just happened? This wasn't a memory, but a fantasy. Will sat back on the couch on shaky legs. Had he just been mildly turned on by hearing himself through Hannibal's imagination? How was this his life? Was there more of this sort of material stashed around the house? Why wasn't it labelled?

Come to think about it, Hannibal was always drawing _stuff_. What if there were explicit drawings of Will neatly disguised as medical journals buried between actual medical journals in a cupboard somewhere behind one of the endless series of doors? When Hannibal was conscious again, they'd have to have a talk about reorganizing the content of their memory palace in a way that was less insane. It would be better for everybody if the erotic material was gathered in one place and didn't bear misleading titles!

A gentle cough interrupted his rumination and he turned to see that Hannibal had materialized inside the room, and was supporting himself on the door frame. He didn't look very healthy - his pants hung low and baggy on his hips and his face had a yellow pallor.

“My apologies, Will. It appears I have misjudged your willingness to listen to Russian ballet”, he said. “An honest mistake.”

“This is awkward”, Will muttered. “I didn't want to find out this way.” 

“We needn't speak of it again.”

“No, that's not... I don't mind… That's _exactly_ what we need to do.”

“Oh?”

“I think in some way I already knew.”

“Perhaps so. Nothing of mine is locked to you, not even the memories that have been long inaccessible to myself.”

“Didn't know you had a thing for my voice in particular though.”

“Dear Will, I believe all my senses have a fondness for you. But I didn't come here to create embarrassment. Come back to the real world with me, please. I require your assistance to bring my fever down.”

Will nodded.

“And, Will? If you do venture in those parts again while I am still recovering, I advise you to not open any of the Ireland travel guides in my study. Or any of my 90s tax returns or faxes.” Hannibal said with a faint smile.

Will decided to keep firmly out of the memory palace until Hannibal had recovered fully. And after that, maybe they would create some real memories between the two of them, auditory or otherwise.

**Author's Note:**

> Give this weird thing (and this weird person) some love if you liked my story.


End file.
